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Bertrand Russell: Why I Am Not A Christian, by Bertrand Russell
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- Sales Rank: #1396368 in Books
- Published on: 1957
- Binding: Paperback
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THE CLASSIC ESSAY, ALONG WITH OTHER IMPORTANT ESSAYS
By Steven H Propp
Bertrand Arthur William Russell (1872-1970) was an influential British philosopher, logician, mathematician, and political activist. In 1950, he was awarded the Nobel Prize in Literature, in recognition of his many books such as A History of Western Philosophy, The Problems of Philosophy, Mysticism and Logic, Religion and Science, The Philosophy of Logical Atomism, The Analysis of Mind, Our Knowledge of the External World, Human Knowledge: Its Scope and Limits, etc.
He wrote in the Preface to this 1957 collection of essays, "There has been a rumor in recent years to the effect that I have become less opposed to religious orthodoxy than I formerly was. This rumor is totally without foundation. I think all the great religions of the world---Buddhism, Hinduism, Christianity, Islam, and Communism---both untrue and harmful... I am as firmly convinced that religions do harm as I am that they are untrue."
The title essay (given to the South London Branch of the National Secular Society in 1927, when Russell was 55) begins by defining what Russell considers a "Christian": "I do not mean by a Christian any person who tries to live decently according to his lights. I think that you must have a certain amount of definite belief before you have a right to call yourself a Christian... I think... that there are two different items which are quite essential to anybody calling himself a Christian. The first is... you must believe in God and immortality... Then... you must have some kind of belief about Christ... I think you must have at the very lowest the belief that Christ was, if not divine, at least the best and wisest of men. If you are not going to believe that much about Christ I do not think you have any right to call yourself a Christian." (Pg. 3-4) But he admits, "in the olden days it had a much more full-blooded sense. For instance, it included the belief in ... eternal hell-fire... but in this country... hell was no longer necessary to a Christian. Consequently I shall not insist that a Christian must believe in hell." (Pg. 5) So he concludes, "when I tell you why I am not a Christian I have to tell you ... why I do not believe in God and immortality; and ... why I do not think that Christ was the best and wisest of men, although I grant for him a very high degree of moral goodness." (Pg. 5)
He quickly rejects the traditional arguments for the existence of God. Then he discusses "The Character of Christ": "I now want to say a few words ... [about] whether Christ was the best and wisest of men. It is generally taken for granted that we should all agree that that was so. I do not myself. I think that there are a good many points upon which I agree with Christ a great deal more than the professing Christians do. I do not know that I could go with him all the way, but I could go with Him much further than most professing Christians can. You will remember that He said, `Resist not evil: but whosoever shall smite thee on thy right cheek, turn to him the other also.' That is not a new precept or a new principle. It was used by Lao-tse and Buddha some 500 or 600 years before Christ, but it is not a principle which as a matter of fact Christians accept... There is another point which I consider excellent... `Judge not lest ye be judged.' That principle I do not think you would find was popular in the law courts of Christian countries.... Then there is one other maxim of Christ which I think has a great deal in it, but I do not find that it is very popular among some of our Christian friends. He says, `... go and sell that which thou has, and give to the poor.' That is a very excellent maxim, but, as I say, it is not much practiced. All these ... are good maxims, although they are a little difficult to live up to. I do not profess to live up to them myself; but then, after all, it is not quite the same thing as for a Christian." (Pg. 14-15)
But his strongest points are made in the section, "Defects in Christ's Teaching": "I come to certain points in which I do not believe that one can grant either the superlative wisdom or the superlative goodness of Christ as depicted in the gospels; and here I may say that one is not concerned with the historical question. Historically it is quite doubtful whether Christ ever existed at all, and if He did we do not know anything about Him, so that I am not concerned with the historical question... I am concerned with Christ as he appears in the Gospels... and there one does find some things do not seem to be very wise. For one thing, he certainly thought that his second coming would occur in clouds of glory before the death of all the people who were living at that time... He says, for instance, `Ye shall not have gone over the cities of Israel till the Son of Man be come.' [Mt 10:23] Then He says, `There are some standing here which shall not taste death till the Son of Man comes into His kingdom' [Mt 16:28]; and there are a lot of places where it is quite clear that He believed that His second coming would happen during the lifetime of many then living... and it was the basis of a good deal of His moral teaching... He thought that the second coming was going to be very soon, and that all ordinary mundane affairs did not count..." (Pg. 15-16)
He continues, "There is one very serious defect to my mind in Christ's moral character, and that is that He believed in hell. I do not myself feel that any person who is really profoundly humane can believe in everlasting punishment. Christ certainly as depicted in the Gospels did believe in everlasting punishment, and one does find repeatedly a vindictive fury against those people who would not listen to His preaching... Christ says, `The Son of Man shall send forth His angels, and they shall gather out of His kingdom all things that offend, and them which do iniquity, and shall cast them into a furnace of fire; there shall be wailing and gnashing of teeth'; and He goes on about the wailing and gnashing of teeth... it is quite manifest to the reader that there is a certain pleasure in contemplating wailing and gnashing of teeth, or else it would not occur so often... I think all this doctrine, that hell-fire is a punishment for sin, is a doctrine of cruelty..." (Pg. 17-18) He concludes, "I cannot myself feel that either in the matter of wisdom of in ... virtue Christ stands quite as high as some other people known to history. I think I should put Buddha and Socrates above Him in those respects." (Pg. 19)
He concludes by asserting that "the church... is in its major part an opponent still of progress and of improvement... because it has chosen to label as morality a certain narrow set of rules of conduct which have nothing to do with human happiness... Religion is based, I think, primarily and mainly upon fear... I think our own hearts can teach us, no longer to look around for imaginary supports, no longer to invent allies in the sky, but rather to look to our own efforts here below to make this world a fit place to live in, instead of the sort of place that the churches in all these centuries have made it." (Pg. 21-22)
Also contained in this collection is his famous 1093 essay, "The Free Man's Worship," in which he wrote: "That man is the product of causes which had no prevision of the end they were achieving; that his origin, his growth, his hopes and fears, his loves and his beliefs, are but the accidental collocations of atoms; that no fire, no heroism, no intensity of thought or feeling, can preserve an individual life beyond the grave; that all the labours of the ages, all the devotion, all the inspiration, all the noonday brightness of human genius, are destined to extinction in the vast death of the solar system, and that the whole temple of Man's achievement must inevitably be buried beneath debris of a universe in ruins---all these things, if not quite beyond dispute, are yet so nearly certain that no philosophy which rejects them can hope to stand. Only within the scaffolding of these truths, only on the firm foundation of unyielding despair, can the soul's habitation henceforth be safely built." (Pg. 107) [But note that this essay was written when he was profoundly depressed; he said in his 1956 book, Portraits from Memory, that the essay was "a work of which I do not now think well."]
The original editions of this book contained his famous radio debate with Fr. Frederick Copleston; you can obtain this debate at various places online, or in the book, The Existence of God. Editor Paul Edwards also wrote for this collection a fascinating [if infuriating] account of Russell being declared in court "unfit" to teach philosophy at the College of the City of New York---and the cancellation of this appointment thrust Russell into serious financial difficulties, for a period.
Atheists, agnostics, skeptics, freethinkers, opponents of Christianity, and like-minded persons will likely find this book one of their "All-time, Desert Island" favorite books. But many religious and spiritually-minded persons (and perhaps even some Christians) may find it intellectually-stimulating reading.
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